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Professional carpet cleaners help increase soil removal

Professional carpet cleaners help increase soil removal, while ensuring as little damage possible to the cover of the textile floor. These carpet cleaners possess necessary knowledge, experience and education/training to perform the task to perfection. Taking up carpet cleaning as a profession needs industry accreditation. These are offered by recognized training institutes such as Jena Dyco, Australian Cleaning and Restoration Industry, and Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC), to name a few. People who’ve undergone necessary training can differentiate between different carpets and the type of cleaning treatment they need. All carpet cleaners are not the same – there’s difference in terms of experience, training and also the equipment they can use.

The Best Cleaning Method

Carpet cleaning experts do not have a template approach to cleaning. The cleaning professional would carefully assess the task at hand and devise a cleaning strategy accordingly. When booking the work, the professional puts forward multiple questions to the client, to determine the project estimate and the equipment required. When on site, the carpet cleaner would assess the carpet type, use, make, and the extent of soiling. After considering these things, the cleaner arrives at the best cleaning treatment. During cleaning, the cleaner should go over five primary carpet cleaning principles for ensuring the best results.

1. Dry Soil Removal

The first important step in carpet cleaning is vacuuming. Flattened or crushed pile should be cleared with a grooming rake or brush, prior to vacuuming. Dry soil removal can then be maximized. During vacuuming, ensure:

• There’s some space left in the collection chamber
• The airflow is free and unobstructed
• The drive belt’s condition is good (vacuum must be serviced 1-2 times every year)
• The beater brush’s condition is good

2. Soil Suspension

Soil suspension helps eliminate the leftover soil after dry vacuuming. It achieves this by breaking the carpet fibre and soil bond. There are four primary aspects to breaking this adhesion:

• Chemical activity: A pre-spray is put to work post-vacuuming. Wherever feasible, carpet cleaners would want to use sprays with bio-degradable agents. To make sure the application is in right quantities, the label instructions must be adhered to.

• Heat/temperature: In general, increased heat means more cleaning efficiency. The pre spray’s power is augmented with heat, which usually means not a lot of chemical is required for achieving optimal results. When the chemicals used are bare minimum, the residue is also less. But the heat should be handled by an experienced person, to ensure there’s no dye loss and fibre damage.

• Agitation: This is achieved using a brush, and a motorized water pressure or rotary. Agitation helps with distributing cleaning agents to increase the efficiency with which the carpet fibres can be separated from soils. As a result, the soil suspension process gets a speed boost.

• Time: Soil suspension is not possible right away. Chemicals take time to permeate the carpet for maximum efficiency.

3. Suspended Soil Removal

There are multiple soil removal methods, but the hot water extraction method is most common. The other methods are:

• Bonnet method or using an absorbent pad or dry compound for absorption
• Carpet shampoo or wet vacuuming
• Flushing – an immersion technique used for cleaning rugs
• Dry residue vacuuming – this entails a foam or dry compound distributed onto the carpet to first attract suspended soil and then vacuum it away.

It’s usually considered a major inconvenience if a carpet doesn’t dry within a few hours. Also, as a result, the chances of foot traffic-induced re-soiling increases. Another major consequence is increased likeliness of fall and slip accidents when transitioning to hard floors from wet carpet. Also, there are problems such as odor, mold, dye transfer or bleeds, and browning.

To decrease drying periods, professionals resort to a few unique techniques, which include:

• Ensuring a well-maintained and efficiently working equipment
• Making sure there is sufficient air flow or adequate ventilation through the property (for example, heating/ ceiling fans/ open windows)
• Dry passing with the wand post rinse/wet passes, for maximum water extraction
• Use hot water for help with evaporation
• Using drying equipment – for instance, air movers

Not all of these methods would get implemented at a time.

Drying Time Needed for a Carpet

Drying times differ based on some unique factors – including internal and external atmospheric conditions, fibre type, air movement, soiling amount (more cleaning solution is needed for heavily soiled carpet), pile density, deodorants, and protector application. Other aspects significantly affecting drying periods are the cleaner’s experience, equipment performance, and the cleaning method employed. Usually, the carpets that are cleaned with the hot water extraction method take 4-5 hours to dry; bonnet cleaning and other dry cleaning techniques won’t take more than a couple of hours; and cleaning with dry compound means immediate results.

Generally, qualified and trained carpet cleaners have websites where they put down their credentials and experience details. Cleaners who’ve completed their certification tests are issued ID cards by IICRC. This card serves as an identification of sorts that customers can ask to verify the cleaner’s credentials. A good place for locating a local professional carpet cleaner or cleaning service is the IICRC website. At the end of the day, the carpet cleaner you choose should not have been narrowed down based on his price alone. Interrogating the cleaner before handing over the cleaning project is important.